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Audible Set To Distribute Up To $250K In Grants To Tech Founders Open To Relocating Their Companies To Newark, NJ
Audible's Innovation Cathedral in Newark, New Jersey
Aug 14, 2023
Audible is offering incentives to attract creative-tech startups to the Tubman Square neighborhood, particularly those with founders of color who reflect the empowering spirit of the park’s namesake and the racial and ethnic makeup of Newark, which is roughly 50% Black people and 90% people of color.
“I think that Newark can be the Black tech mecca,” said Aisha Glover, vice president of urban innovation for Audible’s Global Center for Urban Development.
Glover said the relocation grants and housing subsidies are available to founders of any background. But, she added, the initiative does have a focus.
“It’s not saying, ‘We will not look at and consider others.’ It’s just leading with a level of intentionality around access and opportunity,” Glover said, “and also respecting the demographic of the city that we’re in.”
Under the initiative, launched several months ago and announced last week, Audible has set aside nearly $1 million for grants to help cover relocated companies’ first year of lease payments in buildings immediately surrounding Tubman Square, a one-acre expanse of grass, trees, and statues bordered by Broad Street to the northeast, Washington Street to the northwest, and Washington Place to the southwest.
Part of Newark’s James Street Commons Historic District, Tubman Square is the former Washington Park, originally named for America’s first president, George Washington, but renamed in June 2022 before the monument’s unveiling in March.
Beyond the relocation grants, Audible is encouraging tech founders and their employees to live in Newark with the offer of a $500 monthly rent subsidy. The company also subsidizes shopping and dining at local retail outlets and restaurants, perks previously limited to its 1,700 Newark employees.
The company’s recent focus on Tubman Square is a continuation of efforts dating back nearly a decade by Mayor Ras J. Baraka’s administration, Audible and others to market Newark as a tech hub. Glover said city has no formal role in the current initiative — which is the company’s first effort to attract new firms to its own or any other specific neighborhood — though Newark does its own citywide recruiting, and city and company officials are in regular contact about Tubman Square